Burger King Still Serving Whopper to Migrant Farmworkers

[ashling]

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In 2005, Florida tomato pickers gained their first significant pay raise since the late 1970s when Taco Bell ended a consumer boycott by agreeing to pay an extra penny per pound for its tomatoes, with the extra cent going directly to the farm workers. Last April, McDonald’s agreed to a similar arrangement, increasing the wages of its tomato pickers to about 77 cents per bucket. But Burger King, whose headquarters are in Florida, has adamantly refused to pay the extra penny — and its refusal has encouraged tomato growers to cancel the deals already struck with Taco Bell and McDonald’s.

This month the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, representing 90 percent of the state’s growers, announced that it will not allow any of its members to collect the extra penny for farm workers. Reggie Brown, the executive vice president of the group, described the surcharge for poor migrants as “pretty much near un-American.”

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The prominent role that Burger King has played in rescinding the pay raise offers a spectacle of yuletide greed worthy of Charles Dickens. Burger King has justified its behavior by claiming that it has no control over the labor practices of its suppliers. “Florida growers have a right to run their businesses how they see fit,” a Burger King spokesman told The St. Petersburg Times.

***

Telling Burger King to pay an extra penny for tomatoes and provide a decent wage to migrant workers would hardly bankrupt the company. Indeed, it would cost Burger King only $250,000 a year. At Goldman Sachs, that sort of money shouldn’t be too hard to find. In 2006, the bonuses of the top 12 Goldman Sachs executives exceeded $200 million — more than twice as much money as all of the roughly 10,000 tomato pickers in southern Florida earned that year. Now Mr. Blankfein should find a way to share some of his company’s good fortune with the workers at the bottom of the food chain.


more at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/opinion/29schlosser.html


also http://www.ciw-online.org/

[Richard Steele]

1. Reggie Brown will spend eternity in hell gathering up his own greed for 77¢ a bucket.

Just sayin'.

[sandnsea]

2. This should be resolved in one day

It should be one spot on all the morning shows. People should automatically quit going to Burger King. And the next day the increase is implemented. This is worse than Walmart and health care. I'm glad I don't eat fast food anymore.

[woodsprite]

3. Our minister was explaining this boycott to the youth group

Then they went out and had lunch at Taco Bell and wrote letters to Burger King and others. The point was that boycotts do work in large enough numbers, as do other protests.

[mcscajun]

4. This story is already six weeks old. No sign of resolution yet.

:(